Chapter 2

It was the soft beeping of a heart rate monitor that awoke her from her sleep. She recognised the sound quickly, not from any personal experience thankfully, but from the countless movies and tv shows she had seen that had featured the iconic noise. What she had never imagined during those scenes was the level of itchiness she felt all over her body. Opening her eyes she could see the cause, the numerous sensors that had been strapped to her arms and legs, that fed into a number of machines she couldn't understand.

She didn't bother trying to decipher them. Instead, she simply focused on the body sat slumped in the corner on a chair, the form of her mother who looked to have passed out with exhaustion. Cold, and weak, Pyrrha summoned the strength to raise a hand and tap one of the sensors against her metal frame. A sharp clanging sound rang out, startling her mother, who leapt from the chair as she spotted Pyrrha's eyes on her.

"Pyrrha, you're awake!" In a surprising display of multitasking, her mother managed to have the presence of mind to ring a buzzer and summon a nurse, even as she instantly began doting on her daughter. "How are you feeling sweetheart, do you need anything? Do you want some water?"

Her mother was already pushing a cup of water with a straw towards her mouth before Pyrrha could say a word. The garbled scratchy noise from her throat told her that she most certainly did need the drink though. The first drops revealed just how desperately thirst she was, and Pyrrha was quickly gulping down the entire cup.

As her mother took the cup away to refill it, she finally managed to speak. "What happened?"

"You collapsed outside the café. Your father called for an ambulance, but when they arrived you started… using your semblance." Her mother saw Pyrrha's immediate alarm and rushed to reassure her. "Nobody was hurt, don't worry darling. But they had to sedate you. You've been out for several hours now, the doctors had to run some tests on your aura. Your father is just at the house, he's collecting a few things for you in case you need to stay."

Pyrrha nodded along but said nothing, trapped in her own mind as she processed what she was told. Her musings were cut short as the door to their room opened, and a nurse came in to see them.

"Ah, miss Nikos. It's good to see you're awake, how are you feeling?"

"I'm ok, a bit thirsty." The nurse checked over one of the machines, taking notes from something Pyrrha couldn't understand as she spoke. "What are you doing?"

"Just doing some checks on your vitals, from what I can see everything looks fine now. I'll let the doctor know you're awake and he'll come speak to you about your condition."

Pyrrha nodded numbly and answered politely as the nurse asked several follow up questions. It wasn't until several minutes had passed that the nurse finally left and went to collect the doctor, leaving her alone again with her mother.

"Pyr," she began nervously, "I know you might not want to talk about it, but if all this is because of that dream you had… well I think you should talk to the doctor at least. He needs to know what happened."

She hesitated. Pyrrha knew what happened to her warranted her complete honesty with her doctor, and she didn't know how to explain what she had experienced or how she was back. But, how could she even begin talking about what she had been through without sounding insane?

When the doctor arrived, he began with the same type of general questions that the nurse had asked. How she was feeling, whether she had drunk anything, if she'd experienced anything like it before, and so on until he finally began to explain what had happened to her.

"What you've experienced Pyrrha, is an outburst of what we call Blau syndrome. It's rare, and was named after a Huntsman who it was identified from, have you ever heard of it before?" She shook her head. "Okay, well it's a condition unique to those who have their aura's unlocked and is most commonly seen in Huntsman and Huntresses. For people who have experienced traumatic events, in rare cases these events can have an impact on a person's aura, due to psychological impact on your soul. This can result in extreme outbursts of semblance usage, and aura levels fluctuating heavily, along with the traditional symptoms we would see in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now from what we've seen, your symptoms appear to match Blau syndrome, but we're struggling to find a cause for it in one as young as yourself. These kinds of situations normally present themselves in those much older. In a sense, congratulations are in order, as you're the youngest individual we've seen before." His joke had Pyrrha reluctantly smiling, and his own returning smile had the tension in the room easing. "So I have to ask, is there anything you can think of that might have caused this?"

She hesitated, eyes flicking over to her mother. Her mother looked back to her, then pretended her phone was buzzing.

"Oh, excuse me, I need to take this, I'll give you two some privacy."

She stood up and left the room, leaving Pyrrha alone with the doctor as she carefully thought things over.

"Um, what I tell you, you can't tell other people right?"

"I can discuss medical situations with other doctors on a strictly professional basis, but I can't reveal any private or identifiable information to anyone who is not ascribed to your care. If you tell me something that means you intend harm to another individual, I can tell that person only."

She was silent. Shutting her eyes, and nodding her head, she forced herself to speak.

"I… had a dream, a bad one. It was in the future, my future…"

_/\_TIG_/\_

Talia was typing up a message as her husband strolled into the waiting room by her side.

"How's Pyrrha?" He put the bags he'd brought for her on the floor before greeting his wife with a quick hug and kiss.

"She's okay, she's awake. The doctor is in with her now, he thinks she might have something called Blau syndrome, he'll tell us more about it later. I-… what's she doing here?"

Talia pointed past her husband and to Azuli, Pyrrha's agent who had apparently invited herself along and was questioning one of the first nurses she could grab the attention of. Petus sighed and held up his hands in defence.

"She came to the house when I was still packing things up. When I told her what was happening she demanded she come, she said she would be on her best behaviour."

Talia frowned at the irate way Azuli seemed to be speaking to the nurse, before storming off and over towards the parents.

"This place is terrible, can't get any information out of anyone. What have you heard?"

Talia bit her lip, shooting a mild glare to her husband before she answered. "Pyrrha is awake, she's speaking with the doctor now, he'll tell us more when they finish speaking."

"Good, good. Hopefully Pyrrha is okay and she can leave this place quickly. If she needs rest, better she do it at home." Talia didn't want to ask whether Azuli's concern was out of Pyrrha's comfort, or if it was because of the rumours that 'The Invincible Girl' being in the hospital caused, she felt depressed feeling she knew the answer. "I made the call to Pumpking Pete's. As expected, we've lost the chance for Pyrrha to be the new mascot, they're going with some other Huntress from Vacuo, Arslan something. I pushed for them to delay, but they weren't interested in hearing it. They said they had a schedule to keep, and if we couldn't provide a model to meet their needs, then they would just find someone else."

"Whatever happened to their interest in Pyrrha? They said she was the best they'd ever seen?" Petus couldn't help but be insulted at how his daughter had been seemingly discarded without a second thought.

"It was just words, that's all they ever are. It's what the industry is like, one moment they'll treat you like a queen and the next they just throw you away."

"None of this matters right now." Talia cut in. "Pyrrha is in the hospital, and I don't care about her damn modelling gigs right now. What matters is her getting better."

"And she will," Azuli reassured her, "but in the meantime it's my job to make plans for her when she's back to work. We'll find out how long she needs off, and she'll take it off to rest, but the longer she's out the harder it will be for her to get back in. Until she goes to Beacon, she's still here."

Talia felt a sneer coming but bit it back. She couldn't blame Azuli for doing the job they'd asked her to do, but she felt guilty for even needing to consider her daughters work at a time like this. So instead, she sat down and stayed quiet as her husband discussed details while they waited.

It was some time before the doctor finally emerged from the room, and Talia was instantly to her feet and alongside her husband.

"Well doctor?"

"From discussions with Pyrrha, it looks like Blau syndrome is the correct diagnosis. Physically, she can recover from her outburst with time, and I would be willing to discharge her today to recover at home. For treatment, she needs some sessions with a therapist and a calm, peaceful environment. Techniques like yoga and meditation are known to help, and I would suggest she takes it easy on her training for a while. Running, light exercise, these are all good things to help her destress and remain calm, but make sure she avoids pushing herself to extremes and I would suggest avoiding any sparring for some time."

"A therapist? Is it really that bad?"

The doctor held up a calming hand at Talia's question. "Pyrrha is okay. Therapy is not just for those with more recognizable psychological issues, it can be a good and helpful process for all. Pyrrha is under a great deal of stress from her occupation, and private discussions with a professional will help to relieve that."

"I know someone who can help." Azuli said, her scroll already out and sending off messages. "I have some contacts with a few different therapists, I'll see who can free up their schedule for her."

"Excellent." The doctor said, motioning towards the open door to Pyrrha's room. "Pyrrha is free to go, just give me an hour to check off a few things with the nurses and then she can be discharged and head home."

_/\_TIG_/\_

When Pyrrha arrived home, her parents tried to make her feel as calm and under as little pressure as possible. Azuli had left them after their departure from the hospital, promising to come by the house the next day after giving Pyrrha some time to rest. Resting was honestly what Pyrrha had intended to do. After being back home she had settled in towards her bed to lay down and maybe even sleep more as her parents pampered her with all her favourite treats.

Her talents could survive a day of bed rest and eating ice cream from the tub.

However, lying in bed she waited and waited for sleep to come, to whisk her away into a peaceful land of darkness and dreams. But nothing came. Her thoughts were anything but idle, thinking over all that she had told the doctor and what he had told her. She had phrased everything she had experienced as a dream, and the doctor had reassured her it was all in her head, but she couldn't believe it. With so much knowledge and experience put in her mind, she knew it had been real, it must have been.

Yet there was doubt, gnawing at her mind. She had to be sure, had to prove to herself it was real.

Taking out her scroll, she typed in a number and hesitated. "If it was all a dream, then this isn't real. This number means nothing. If I'm right, then there's no way this number could lead to anyone else."

With shaking hands, she pressed the button to dial, and her scroll began to ring. Thanks to the location of Argus, there were few numbers she could dial without the use of the CCT system, limiting her to Argus and parts of Atlas at best. She couldn't reach through to someone like Weiss, the Schnee manor out of signal to where she was now, and she didn't know anyone else who lived in Argus that she had met after attending Beacon. But she knew Jaune, and she knew Jaune had mentioned visiting his sister in Argus for a camping trip around this time. If it was ringing, that meant that it had service, and now she just had to confirm if the number was right.

The ringing continued on, and Pyrrha waited and waited for the answer. She just needed them to pick up, just pick up.

*click* "Hello?"

The woman's voice came through the other end, and Pyrrha felt her breathing falter. "H-hello? Sorry, I was looking for Jaune." It wasn't him, the number had been wrong.

"Oh, yeah sorry his scroll was on the side. I'll go get him."

Pyrrha felt her heart leap into her throat. Jaune. It was his number. Her breathing returning, faster and faster as she heard movement on the other end of the call. After several scratching sounds, there was a breathy cracking voice that answered.

"Hello?"

It was him. It was Jaune.

"I uh-… w-wrong number, sorry."

She hung up before he could say anything to her, and she was left in the dead silence of her room.

It was real, it was all real. All that she had experienced right up to the moment of her death. Jaune was safe, as was everyone else she had known. Beacon was safe and sound, ready and waiting for her arrival. And so was Cinder Fall.

Not just Cinder, her accomplices too. Mercery Black. Emerald Sustrai. Neopolitan. Roman Torchwick.

An entire criminal enterprise that sought to bring about the fall of Beacon, and perhaps even Vale as a whole with the help of the White Fang and the Grimm. But that wasn't all that was planned. Cinder Fall had wanted the powers of the maiden, of Amber. Professor Ozpin had her locked deep within Beacon after the attempt on her life, something which may have already happened.

Her eyes drifted subconsciously towards her wardrobe, the glint of Miló and Akoúo̱ hanging inside. It was calling to her, begging her to act. Her enemies were out there, waiting. Her killer. She would not let them win again.

Six names on her list, plus the White Fang in their entirety. What was she meant to do though? Torchwick was an already known element by the time she had arrived in Beacon, and his thefts had been successful if not very secretive, yet he hadn't been caught. The White Fang were of course widely known, and Blake had known more about their organization than Pyrrha did, yet hadn't been able to be stopped. That left Cinder and her team, a group of four which had somehow come to Beacon without issue.

Scrambling out of bed, Pyrrha began to write down the details that she knew, and small points of a plan began to form.

She knew key events that team RWBY had been involved in. The fight against Roman at the docks, the fight against Roman in his stolen Atlas mech, and the White Fang forces hidden away in Mountain Glenn. A timeline of events wherein Roman and the White Fang had been bested, and yet it still led to Beacon's attack.

And what did she know about the attack? It had started when… when she had killed Penny.

The pad in her hand dipped, and guilt stabbed at her heart. The first person to die during the attack on Beacon had been by her own hands. An innocent woman killed because she had pushed too hard. But what else could she have done? There were so many blades, she'd needed all her strength to push back against so many.

A realisation ticked in her mind, flashes of memory as she saw Penny's bisected form on the ground… and only a small number of blades. They hadn't been real. It was an illusion. Her hands gripped tight, fists clenching around the pen in her hand. Penny had died because someone had used a semblance. Someone had tricked her into murdering Penny.

She thought through the people she knew, and what semblances she had seen. Cinder had used glass and the maiden powers during their fight, so it didn't seem likely it was her. Neither Mercery nor Emerald had used their semblances during their fight in the competition, and she'd never heard of Roman Torchwick using his. But she had heard of someone else using a semblance to create illusions, his accomplice. Team RWBY had told her that Neo had shattered into glass when helping Torchwick escape. An illusion.

She circled the name on her pad for emphasis. Neo was a threat, a murderer by trickery if not also directly. She needed to do something about her.

But again, the question became what?

If she knew of fights between Team RWBY and the bad guys which had ended in victory, yet all the while still led to defeat, then either something needed to change about their victories, or they had missed something. She thought more about the attack on Beacon, about what had been happening.

Grimm had flooded the sky and city, White Fang had attacked the school, and the Atlas mechs had gone rogue. Why had that happened? Had they been hacked? The Atlas battleships must have been serving as the command and control for the robots, and so the secret must have laid there. And it was on those same battleships that Torchwick had been taken to after the breach from Mountain Glenn.

More and more pieces were coming together now. It wasn't just enough to stop whatever they were doing, Cinder and her people needed to be stopped in a way that thoroughly derailed whatever plans they'd had. Either by intent or adjusting their current plans, they had managed to turn Torchwicks capture into an opportunity.

Well, she could do the same. She could give all the information she had over to Ozpin, forewarn him of everything that was set to happen. She would need to convince him, but that would likely be easier than convincing anyone else. Ozpin knew of the existence of magic from the maidens, and he and the other staff ran some sort of secret group to keep the world safe. She simply had to find a chance to meet with him, explain everything, convince him with her knowledge of the maidens and everything else he had told her. Then they could act, they could fight.

Her hand trembled.

She would fight. No matter how much stronger Ozpin and his allies were, she would need to be there. She had first-hand knowledge of everything, she was the strongest fighter of her year in Beacon, the strongest of several years. And that would mean she would need to face Cinder again.

She was scared, it was true, but there was something else within her. She wanted to fight her again. She needed to. Her eyes flicked over to her weapons once more. She would need to train, to practice harder than she ever had before to become strong enough against Cinder. And that meant that her old life didn't matter anymore. No more keeping secret her semblance, it hadn't mattered in the end, she needed to become stronger in every way possible.

It pained her to remember all the time she had wasted holding herself back. Her training regime had even been limited to ensure her muscles didn't grow too big and impact her modelling career. At the time she had compensated with more agility training, but now she would need everything her body could have.

But this was an opportunity in more ways than just one.

Cinder had to be stopped, the attack on Beacon needed to be prevented, and she could do that. She would do that. But also… Jaune. His cheerful smile echoed through her mind. Now was her chance to fix the mistakes she had made so many times, so many times of not saying what she had meant to. She hadn't worked up the courage to express her feelings until it had been too late, when she'd gone to the fight that had killed her.

Her fingers touched her lips in memory. Her first kiss. Her only kiss. She remembered the feeling though. The warmth, the love, the sheer sense of relief that she had felt.

Yes, that was another mistake to fix, and another opportunity for her. Cinder would be stopped, and Jaune would be hers.